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Crain's week in news, Jan 25-31

Photo by Andrew Templeton / Crain's Detroit Business
A mural that depicts vintage Americana is among the artwork inside The Z, a parking garage that has opened in the central business district.

Source: Detroit retirees to fare better in health benefits pact

Detroit's more than 21,000 pensioners may have preserved a significant share of their retiree health care benefits under a settlement-in-principle reached in mediation talks surrounding the city's bankruptcy.

Details of the settlement deal, which runs through the end of 2014, were expected in a joint statement by the city and its Official Committee of Retirees. A source who asked not to be identified told Crain's the deal improves "by a significant chunk" the amount Detroit agrees to pay out on its health benefits, compared to the city's original position.

On the move

James Connelly

• Detroit-based Health Alliance Plan named James Connellyas CEO after nearly a yearlong search to replace Bill Alvin. Connelly was CFO of HAP parent Henry Ford Health System and had been HAP's interim CEO since October.

• The Wayne County Airport Authority board elected Alfred R. Glancy III as its chairman for 2014. Glancy is executive chairman of Seattle-based Unico Investment Group LLC and former chairman and CEO of MCN Energy Group Inc. and principal subsidiary Michigan Consolidated Gas Co.

• The American Heart Association named Catherine Smith, 39, executive director for the Southfield-based Southeast Michigan American Heart Association. Her predecessor, Kathy Kauffmann, is now senior vice president of major metro markets for Detroit, Chicago and Twin Cities.

Photo by WDIV-Channel 4
Chuck Gaidica

• Novi City Manager Clay Pearsonresigned, effective March 1, to become city manager of Pearland, Texas, a Houston suburb.

• Longtime Detroit weatherman Chuck Gaidicawill step down as director of meteorology at WDIV-Channel 4 in August to become pastor of world outreach at Novi's Oak Pointe Church.

Company news

Photo by BLOOMBERG
Peter Karmanos Jr.

• An Oakland County Circuit Court judge ordered nonbinding mediation beginning in March to resolve the legal dispute between the Detroit Medical Center and Flint-based McLaren Health Care over the Detroit-based Karmanos Cancer Institute.

• Less than four months after Compuware Corp. terminated his consulting contract, Peter Karmanos Jr.has started Mad Dog Technology LLC, according to documents from the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. The website for the software company reveals few details except an address: 233 Pierce St. in Birmingham.

• Bankrupt auto supplier Revstone Industries LLCis suing former Chairman George Hofmeister in an attempt to recover more than $12.9 million. The suit, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., alleges that Hofmeister transferred the funds from Southfield-based Revstone to pay down personal and nonrelated business debts, according to court records and a Dow Jones report.

• Chrysler Co. and Fiat announced that their combined company would be renamedFiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and would be based in the Netherlands.

• The new owner of Ann Arbor-based Web-analytics company ForeSee Results Inc. announced a round of layoffs that media reports put at between 50 and 75 of the company's 300 employees. St. Louis-based Answers Corp. bought ForeSee in December.

• Editors at Patch, which includes 30 hyper-local news sites in Southeast Michigan, received word of company-wide layoffs that put the sites at a standstill. According to one source, all of the roughly 15 employees in Michigan were laid off.

• Ivivva, an athletics store for girls by Lululemon, plans to move into the Michigan market with a store slated to open in spring 2014 at the Somerset Collection in Troy.

Photo by LON HORWEDEL
Under a new system known as variable pricing, the Detroit Lions will charge one price for preseason games and have two prices for regular-season games based on the desirability of the matchup.

• The Detroit Lions said they are increasing regular-season ticket prices for 2014 and introducing a three-tiered ticket pricing system through which the team will charge one price for preseason games and offer two prices for regular-season games based on the desirability of the matchup.

• Detroit-based Futuramic Tool & Engineering Co. and Urban Science Applications Inc. will receive a total of $1.3 million in state assistance, the Michigan Economic Development Corp.announced. The MEDC said the companies plan to add 229 jobs in Detroit.

• Inventev, a Detroit-based company with technology that allows commercial trucks to generate electricity for equipment at job sites, won $5,000 for having the best business plan in the Annual Collaboration for Entrepreneurship awards. The event was organized by the Ann Arbor-based Great Lakes Entrepreneur's Quest, a nonprofit that announced it had been rebranded as MiQuest after a merger with the Lansing-based Small Business Foundation of Michigan.

• The DTE Energy Foundationannounced a $1 million grant to the Detroit-based Michigan Science Center to support science, technology, engineering and math programs for children and families.

Other news

Gov. Rick Snyder

• Gov. Rick Snyder announced he will run for a second term and is to kick off his re-election campaign today in Detroit during an event at James Group International.

• The Detroit Institute of Artscommitted $100 million over 20 years to a fund that would protect its art collection and shore up Detroit's underfunded pensions. In exchange for the contributions to the fund, the DIA will be spun off from the city and transferred to the nonprofit that operates it.

• Detroit officials gave Bank of America Corp. and UBS AG a Jan. 31 deadline to say how much they would accept to cancel interest-rate swaps that cost city taxpayers about $4 million a month or face a possible lawsuit, Bloomberg reported.

• Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrenceannounced she is running for the 14th Congressional District seat to be vacated by Gary Peters, who is running for U.S. Senate.

• Organizers announced that attendance at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit was more than 803,000, the highest since 2003.

• The Public Lighting Authority of Detroitapproved a plan to upgrade city streetlights on an accelerated timetable and use 150-watt LED lamps to replace the existing 70-watt sodium lights.

• The Fitzgerald Place project, which will bring a boutique hotel, high-rise residences, three restaurants and a parking garage to the site of the former Statler Hilton Hotel on Grand Circus Park, is expected to be complete by the third quarter of 2015, its planners said.

Andra Rush

• Andra Rush, CEO of Wayne-based Rush Trucking Inc., and Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors Co., were among the guests sitting in Michelle Obama's viewing box at the State of the Union Address in Washington, D.C.

• The Raise Michigan ballot committee launched an effort to raise the state's minimum wage from $7.40 an hour to $10 with a ballot initiative in November. Michigan's minimum wage last increased in 2008; the federal minimum wage is $7.25.

• The Z, a 10-story parking garage that features the work of 27 international mural artists, opened in Detroit's central business district.

• Metro Detroit will host 12 "multiple-hotel" meetings this year, twice the number it hosted in 2013, according to the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau.

• In an order, the Michigan Supreme Court said it will decide whether state employees are covered by a law that makes financial support for unions voluntary. The state appeals court in August said the so-called right-to-work law does apply to 35,000 state workers.

• The Michigan Democratic Partyfiled a complaint against Republican U.S. Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land with the Federal Election Commission over whether Land illegally coordinated with super PACs and other groups that have attacked Democrat Gary Peters in political ads.

• Despite little interest from Michigan's legal community, state Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhofintroduced legislation that would make participation in the State Bar of Michigan — and the fees associated with membership — voluntary.

• The Michigan House Criminal Justice Committee sent to the House floor a bill that would repeal a 1931 state law that barred the practice of selling tickets above face value.

• Michigan's creative industries paid nearly $3.6 billion in wages to 74,000 employees in more than 9,700 businesses in the state during the 2011 fiscal year, according to a report released by ArtServe Michigan.

• A new study shows that health care costs for severely obese patients are 50 percent to 90 percent more than for those who are simply overweight, moderately obese or normal weight, said the Ann Arbor-based Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation.

Obituaries

• Gino Polidori, a former state representative from Dearborn who also served as a city council member and fire chief, died Jan. 26. He was 72.